


Bad Boys Never Call, but They Leave Voicemails

by hellofromthecity



Series: Coney Island Baby [2]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Banter, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29307099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellofromthecity/pseuds/hellofromthecity
Summary: Sequel to Deep Water. What happens after Rory sends Jess off to find what makes him happy, but has second thoughts when he never calls? Yearning across county lines, more spontaneous road trips, debauchery, Rory and Jess making it work, etc.
Relationships: Lorelai Gilmore & Rory Gilmore, Rory Gilmore & Lane Kim, Rory Gilmore/Jess Mariano
Series: Coney Island Baby [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2152563
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You could read alone, knowing that in "Last Week Fights, This Week Tights" Rory ran away with him, but only for the weekend to Mystic. And at the end of it she sent him off to get his shit together.

What was she thinking? Three weeks later and she would still lay awake asking herselfwhy she just let him go off into the night. When she told Paris about Jess, Mystic, sending him off with a kiss, Paris told her "You White Fanged him! Good for you!". Rory couldn't feel so blasé about it. She thought she was doing the noble thing, but that was before she went back to being without him every day. 

The morning after Mystic she had tried to empty her brain by unpacking her boxes. Organizing. Reorganizing. It didn't work, and as the soon as she finished she felt like exploding with horrible laughter-joy-grief. She told Lane the whole sordid tale in quick hushed tones under the gazebo, who just sat there before saying, "That. is so. romantic." That night she had to tell her mom, who had been practicing a modicum of restraint by not shaking Rory until all of her secrets tumbled out. After a full day of walking wide circles around the mystery, Lorelai came into Rory's room and sat on her bed. 

"So," she said, with that glittering smile that said _there is no escaping me_.

"So," Rory sat up in bed, scratched at her blanket nervously. 

"You're blushing honey. You've been blushing all day."

"Well we've been hard at work, all those boxes. A girl can get, you know, flushed."

"Let me rephrase. You know how in _Waitress_ when she finally gets with her doctor and has a renewed lust for life, but then is also filled with inner conflict? You look like that." Lorelai patted Rory's knee. "So spill. What's in that pie?"

Rory gave a rough sigh, trying to gage how disappointed her mom will be in her. Her mom hates Jess. She's made that very clear. Rory didn't make the most explicitly feminist move, forgiving him after one weekend of late night hash-outs. She didn't regret it at all, but she could see how optics didn't fall in her favor. 

"Well. It's an I-don't-understand-how-I'm-feeling sort of pie."

"Yum! Sounds good with coffee. What's in it?"

Lorelai waits for more but Rory doesn't know how to go on. 

"I'm afraid to tell you."

Rory looked up then, and Lorelai could see a rawness in her daughter's eyes she hadn't seen in a long time. Maybe ever. It was beyond the school stress, the family stress, and it wasn't typical heartache. It was _I have had a very serious life experience_ sort of look. Lorelai rubbed up and down Rory's arms and felt her muscles soften. 

"Oh honey, I know I haven't always held up my end of the bargain of being the super cool, non-judgemental mom to my prodigal daughter. But I hope you still feel like you could tell me anything and I wouldn't be disappointed in you. I won't throw you out in the cold at least."

Rory laughed a little, pulled herself out from under her blankets. 

"I don't know. I might have to check into the halfway house after this one."

"Oh don't be silly, Kirk's mom's place has no vacancies. Now enough with the tet-a-tet. Tell me what's up."

Rory let it out in one rush of a sentence. 

"A few nights ago, Jess showed up to my dorm and asked me to run away with him."

Lorelai's eyes went wide, but she nodded in attempt to appear reasonable. 

"Well obviously you said no because you're sitting right here."

Rory winced. 

"You _did_ say no, right?"

"I was still really mad! But, I didn't say no per say. I'm not fleeing to Cuba with him or anything, it was just one weekend!"

"The main question that comes to mind is _why?_ " Lorelai asked, attempting to keep a hold of her temper, which wasn't aimed at Rory by any means. She couldn't believe that little shit had the audacity. 

"I don't know, I wanted an apology I guess? I wanted to know why he hurt me. Why he loved me, and how much."

Rory got that look again, that lovestruck flush, with a dose of melancholy. The bad boys will do that to you. Lorelai put herself in Rory's shoes. She knew the passion of a dangerous old flame coming back to haunt you. She knew Rory still had a soft spot for Jess, for the life he'd led. 

"Where did you go?"

"Mystic."

"Where we went on that trip in middle school?"

"Yes."

Lorelai let out a long breath. 

"You stayed where, in a motel? In his car?"

"Motel."

"And did you...?"

Rory looked down, chewing on her lip.

"Yes."

"Oh my god." Lorelai covered her face with her hands. 

"I'm sorry Mom–"

"No need to be sorry, you're an adult. I'm just wrapping my head around the fact that my daughter lost her virginity to Matt Dillon in _Rumblefish_."

"You said it yourself you thought Matt Dillon was hot in that–"

"Nope. Don't even go there."

A long silence. Lorelai looked at Rory with a weak smile. 

"I know you hate him Mom, but we talked. Really talked. And he's complicated. And he sees me as complicated. And in Stars Hollow everyone has these little cartoon strips they fill, and Jess never fit in that, and I'm finding it harder and harder to fit into that myself. And it's not like we're dating or anything, we're just–we're just–better," Rory finished, pulling in a deep breath she hadn't been able to take in all day. 

Lorelai gathered Rory into a hug. 

"I get it. I really do," Lorelai murmured over Rory's shoulder, who held her mother tight. "But honey, that boy is his own animal. He's a long way from reliable."

"I know mom. I know."

"Thank you for telling me."

Three weeks later Rory lay in that same bed, thinking back on that night where she told him to go. How his headlights looked like eyes in the dark, shrinking. On nights like those, Rory often wished she had at least slept with him one last time before he left. Then she would toss and turn for an hour before finally falling asleep, her last thought before drifting being _why didn't he call?_

. . .

Jess stacked clean pint glasses on the shelf over the bar, readying himself to kick the last straggler out before closing. Jim was a real piece of work. He always gave him a hard time, and Jess was bone-tired of drunks. 

"Alright man. Time to go."

Jim was busy tearing a napkin into 100 tiny pieces. He was about sixty, in a blue-turned-yellow denim shirt and a grey-turned-yellow beard. 

"Just lock me in here."

"You really want to do this routine again?"

"Yup."

Jess sighed and walked around the bar, gathering Jim under the armpits to drag him out. Jim barely struggled, stumbling across the bar floor. 

"You stubborn, heavy, stinky son of a bitch," Jess grunted while he slung Jim towards the door. 

Finally they made it through the threshold, where Jim leaned against the front window of the bar. Jess flicked off the lights and locked up. 

"See you next time Jim."

"Yeah yeah."

Jess lit up a cigarette on his brisk walk home. About a month ago he rolled back into town, slept in his car a few nights before he found a room on the Lower East Side on a month to month lease. It was a room of his own. Well, it was more of a walk in closet, but it was his. He got a job at one of those horrible stores that sell nonsense gifts that people just throw away anyway. Novelty magnets, stupid board games, journals that are already half filled out for you, stuff like that. Luckily he was fired after a few days for abysmal customer service, and there was a help wanted sign on the bar outside of his apartment. The boss, a hardy lady in her thirties took one look at him and said, "Oh yeah. You'll bring in a few regulars."

So he poured beer, cleaned up messes, kept the peace between the committed drunks, mixed a few basic cocktails. It wasn't too bad. He barely drank. It sort of lost its novelty when you were peddling it for eight hours at a time. Two and half weeks on the job and Jess was finding a rhythm. He could deal with drunks, even liked them sometimes. The bar was a dive, so there was a crop old regulars along with the young people, all there for the cheap beer and the pool table. There was a wall between him and them, a power he hadn't had at any other job. But who knows. Maybe it would wear off in another week. He didn't want to come back to New York. But he didn't know if he could go back to the driving, the living out of a bag. And the gig was good. The money flowed. 

Off the job was another story. Jess didn't know what to do with himself. Now that he was experimenting with staying still, and not torturing himself every free minute to drown out his own mind, he felt...he wasn't sure how it felt just yet. He found himself measuring it all up to what Rory might think. Was it enough? Was he together enough for her? He wanted to call her. But he thought of her all the time anyways, and found that pathetic enough. How was he going to get his shit together if he was constantly fawning over an old flame? There was one thing, aside from the working and the walking and the reading. He wrote every morning in the park. Not about Rory. He could never read it back, but he wrote stories, half true half fiction. It was something, but it wasn't enough. There had to be a point where it really got through to him that he wasn't too good at being alone, or that he was better with someone else around. Warmer. More generous. But for now it was him. Him and Jim. Toughing it out. 

He dropped his cigarette butt and unlocked the front door of his apartment, ambling up the stairs to his little room. His roommates were all asleep, would get up in a four hours to go to their own jobs. After Jess had brushed his teeth and laid down, he closed his eyes and saw that beach a few miles past Mystic. Rory laughing in the foam. He asked himself if he would have driven away, even if she hadn't told him to. He knew what he was feeling. It had really settled in. He felt alone. He knew Rory was asleep but pulled out his phone, clicking her contact, hitting her voicemail. 

"Hey Rory."

A long pause. 

"I was reading a book today that had "property of Rory Gilmore" written on the front cover."

Another long pause. 

"Anyways. I miss you."


	2. Chapter 2

Rory woke up in her childhood bed feeling the strangeness of her adulthood. Pseudo adulthood really. It was getting to her, how nothing had really changed. Without the urgency of high school, the feeling of building up to something, the same routine sort of fell flat. She loved eating at Luke's and watching movies with her mom. But something about having zero responsibilities, zero typical markings of adulthood, was getting a little grating. Maybe she needed to get a job. Lane had a job. Jess always had a job. Ms. Patty's was hiring, but Rory didn't think she could do ballet, much less teach it–even if it was to four year olds.

She grabbed her phone off the nightstand to check the time. _1 new message_. From Jess. Jess who confessed his love and devotion in a wild and spontaneous gesture three weeks ago. Jess who hadn't called since.

_Hey Rory...I was reading a book today that had "property of Rory Gilmore" written on the front cover...anyways. I miss you._

What book was it? Where was he calling from? Was he okay? Should she call him back? Rory dialed Lane's number.

"Rory! You called just in time. You just saved me from having Brian explain to me _again_ why Small Faces are better than The Kinks."

"He's just being a contrarian."

"That's what I said. Now what's with the early call?"

Rory hopped out of bed and paced. 

"Jess called. He left a message."

"Finally, that rascal! What did he say?"

"Oh, that he missed me."

"How original."

"Lane!"

"Sorry, sorry! I just think that if he missed you so much he should have called sooner!"

"Well I didn't call either."

"Yes but radio silence is sort of a bad habit of his. One we hoped he'd break"

"You're right, you're right. But he called!"

Rory heard a voice call out on the other line.

"Who was that?"

"Just Brian saying 'women always want to change us'. But you can't change Jess if he's never around."

"Lane! What should I do? Do I call him back?"

Lane hummed in thought. 

"Yes."

"It's not too desperate?"

"No. You guys are too messy and melodramatic to worry about those sort of games. You should do what you want! If you want to hear his voice, call him! It's been long enough."

Rory chewed on her lip. 

"You're right. I'm gonna go. See you later?"

"Meet me at the diner in an hour."

Rory hung up and looked at her phone. Why hadn't _she_ called? Why had she let them play the silent game again? They had left things on such an ambiguous note. And she stood by what she said, that he had to find something within himself–something different then what he was coasting on. She had self-justified the past weeks that she was letting him do that without distracting him. But really her stomach just surged looking at his number in her phone. She felt afraid of how his absence and his presence made her feel. Before, his cagey-ness and stoicism could make her feel small or desperate. Now, she just felt there was a version of herself unleashed by him and Mystic. Someone older. Someone...sexual and wise. She found his contact. Dial. Ring. Ring. He picked up in record time. 

"Hey."

He sounded warm. Sort of sleepy. 

"Hi Jess. Been a while."

"I know. You in Stars Hollow for the summer?"

"Yup. Wasting away."

"Can't say I'm doing too much better," he said–voice ironic. 

"No?" Rory couldn't help the tinge of concern. He picked up on it and changed tone. 

"Well, I'm not sharing one moldy room with a drug runner and a conspiracy theorist anymore. So that's a step up."

"Where do you find your roommates? The no-fly list?"

"Now I share an apartment with two lesbian line cooks and a bassist. I'd say I've upgraded to economy."

"Sounds like an MTV situational comedy in the making."

Jess laughed generously and fell quiet. 

"How are you though, really?"

He took a moment.

"I'm good. Really. I'm bartending at this dive. My hours don't line up with my roommates so I keep to myself mostly."

Rory didn't say anything, but that last word she picked up on it. He sounded lonely. 

"There's no-one you hang out with?"

"There's this old fart whose always in the bar. Me and him are a little too familiar."

Rory hummed, wanting so badly to ask more. But she wanted to see his face when he talked, read all of his subtle mannerisms. 

"What's the bar called?"

"Golden West."

"Sounds like a cowboy bar."

"There's no cowboys in New York. Just the same old drunks and hipsters."

They both fell silent, the line buzzing with everything they both wanted to say. The phone just didn't feel adequate. Jess started and stopped, started again. 

"I–I'm writing. Every morning."

Rory smiled big and silly and bright. That small sentence felt like a very big thing. It felt like an answer to the open question she sent him off with, to find something that was _his._

"You are?"

"Yeah. I am."

"Jess, thank you for calling first. Thank you for telling me. I miss you too," Rory said in a rush.

"Any time. Talk soon?"

"100 percent."

Rory clutched the phone to her chest, feeling exhilarated. She closed her eyes and saw the texture of his life on the back of her eyelids. Sticky bar floor, him with his ever straight back wiping glasses. Tucking away into his little space with a notebook. He was finding the beginning of something, a purpose. Now she had to remind herself hers. An urgency rushed through her. She had to shake something loose. 

. . .

Jess got off the phone feeling jostled, warm, a little confused. Like always, their interaction left off with a feeling of _what next?_ He looked up at his narrow walls, feeling their sparseness. He picked up and flipped through the copy of the collected lyrics of Lou Reed that he was reading. He found out Lou is a Buddhist. Jess wandered if he could be a Buddhist. He shook his head, what was he thinking. He really was going nuts if he was turning to spirituality. His life was too chaotic, too loud and angry to be Buddhist. He wrote something down, a memory of another room years and blocks away. A room from when he was twelve. He remembered lying in bed at night watching car headlights pass across the ceiling. He remembered how their glow looked like bodies, like ghosts. 

He could hear his bassist roommate plucking low riffs in his room. It was one of those days he could tell, where everything felt sort of unreal. Like a quasi hallucination. He was due at the bar in four hours. The cooks were working the brunch shift at some bistro. He felt sweat pool at the base of his spine. It was getting hot. He got up and got dressed, ready to walk. The city oozed and flickered, so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. A flock of crows burst across the sky. A man in a dirty pink suit gave him a salute. A pack of kids sloppily eating popsicles all looked at him. He walked and walked in the heat, wondering who he was to this city and who it was to him. Where did he last feel a sense of belonging? That motel room, with Rory, sleepy eyed and tangled up in the sheets while he handed her a cup of coffee? He passed an apartment building he lived in once. It was deconstructed, being renovated into slick office complexes. He learned how to play poker in that building. In New York he had a routine, but he was still frenetic and untethered. 

He turned around at the East River. Time to shower and go to work. Schlepp drinks to the regulars, the rowdy ones, the quiet ones, cute hipster girls, artists, douchebags. All as unknown to him as he was to them. The skyline melted like ice cream. The sun bounced off a building and onto another one, flashing like a ghost.


End file.
